Meteorologists examining the conditions that spawned hurricanes Rita and Katrina say there is a strong likelihood another intense hurricane will occur in October.
And while late-season storms tend to track eastward toward Florida or don’t make landfall at all, experts don’t rule out the possibility of another major storm targeting the battered Gulf Coast.
Researchers also warn that the country should brace for 10 to 40 more years of powerful storms because of a natural ocean cycle that has produced the most active hurricane period on record.
“This has been the seventh hyperactive year since 1995,” said Stan Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Not every year is going to be like this one, but there’s going to be plenty of active years to come.”
The hurricane season does not end until Nov. 30, and a forecast group is predicting that October will see two hurricanes, one of them reaching at least Category 3. The chance of that storm making landfall in the United States was set at 21 percent, said Philip Klotzbach, a member of the tropical storm forecasting team led by William Gray of Colorado State University.
Klotzbach’s forecast does not address where hurricanes make landfall or whether the Gulf Coast could be a target again. “It’s a tricky business tracking where these storms are going to go,” Klotzbach said. “That’s governed a lot more by day-to-day weather.”
However, Goldenberg said, he “would not be surprised” if the Gulf Coast area was hit again, because the same conditions that nudged Rita and Katrina toward the area are still in place.
Hurricane forecasters have their eye on a weather disturbance in the tropics that “could be Hurricane Stan,” Goldenberg added.
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